Estate of Stevenson

Administrator Petrulis (plaintiff) obtained court approval, without notice to creditors, of a fee agreement paying the estate's law firm twice its hourly rate and giving those fees priority over creditor recovery from the roughly $700,000 in available assets, after the firm had negotiated over $12 million in creditor claims down to $1.7 million in settlements; creditor Wilks (defendant) objected upon learning of the undisclosed fee arrangement, arguing he'd been induced to settle without knowing about it, and the trial court reduced the requested $1.25 million in fees to $200,000.